Christopher Haster
8e77a5eebc
While exploring the test_badblocks ERASENOOP failure more, I realized
the problem is that we are nesting crc32cs.
To be clear, using crc32cs to validate progs in general is not an issue,
that is perfectly fine on paper. The issue is that we were using crc32cs
to validate progs _that contain crc32cs_.
Looking at the collision, we can see the fully expanded lleb128s we use
for our cksum tags:
00 00 00 ff b0 02 00 87 80 80 00 3e c0 7f 7e => bdfa9b10
ab 77 de c2 b0 03 00 87 80 80 00 3e 38 d5 22 => bdfa9b10
'-.-' ^ '----.----' '----.----'
'----|------|-----------|-- cksum tag
'------|-----------|-- cksum weight (0)
'-----------|-- cksum size + padding
'-- cksum crc32c
So we ended up perfectly aligning the cksum's crc32c with our cache
line. Lucky us.
Unfortunately funny math makes it so that whenever a crc32c contains a
crc32c, the inner crc32c sort of cancels itself out from the outer
crc32c. So these two messages end up mathematically equivalent, even
though they contain different data:
crc(m) = m(x) x^|P|-1 mod P
crc(m ++ crc(m)) = (m(x) x^|P|-1 + (m(x) x^|P|-1 mod P)) x^|P|-1 mod P
crc(m ++ crc(m)) = (m(x) x^|P|-1 + m(x) x^|P|-1) x^|P|-1 mod P
crc(m ++ crc(m)) = 0 x^|P|-1 mod P
crc(m ++ crc(m)) = 0
So using a crc32c to check progs is not fit for purpose.
This leaves us with a couple options:
1. Use a different checksum, or do something like rearranging bytes to
avoid this cancelling out issue. Unfortunately this gets tricky since
crc32cs are linear, simply using an xor mask won't work...
2. Don't check progs at such a low-level, but at a high-level using the
rbyd/data block crc32cs. Since this would mean only one crc32c, this
would avoid nesting issues. Unfortunately this would probably come
with quite a high code cost to try to keep track of both the
before+after rbyd cksums everywhere...
3. Just read back the data into the rcache to compare at the byte-level,
which would mean clobbering our rcache when prog checking is enabled.
This commit goes with option 3., which is probably the simplest. It also
removes any question of crc32c collision, which could be a real nuisance
when debugging low-level block device operations, a use case where prog
checking will hopefully be quite valuable.
Clobbering the rcache also has the advantage of reverting the prog
>= read requirement, which is nice for flexibility. Though this needs to
be tested.
---
There was a bit of a hiccup, and that was how prog checking interacts
with lfsr_bd_cpy. lfsr_bd_cpy used the rcache to hold data being copied
to/from disk, but this data needs to be checked, and prog checking would
clobber the rcache. Problems! I guess this is one footgun of the
internal lfsr_bd_readnext API...
The solution is to instead turn this around and use the pcache to hold
any copied data, since this would not be clobbered when prog checking.
This has some other knock-on effects, mainly that we can't take
advantage of read hints in lfsr_bd_cpy, but has the added advantage of
potentially not clobbering the rcache at all when no checking progs.
Code changes were fairly minimal:
code stack
before: 33718 2608
after: 33690 (-0.1%) 2608 (+0.0%)
littlefs
A little fail-safe filesystem designed for microcontrollers.
| | | .---._____
.-----. | |
--|o |---| littlefs |
--| |---| |
'-----' '----------'
| | |
Power-loss resilience - littlefs is designed to handle random power failures. All file operations have strong copy-on-write guarantees and if power is lost the filesystem will fall back to the last known good state.
Dynamic wear leveling - littlefs is designed with flash in mind, and provides wear leveling over dynamic blocks. Additionally, littlefs can detect bad blocks and work around them.
Bounded RAM/ROM - littlefs is designed to work with a small amount of memory. RAM usage is strictly bounded, which means RAM consumption does not change as the filesystem grows. The filesystem contains no unbounded recursion and dynamic memory is limited to configurable buffers that can be provided statically.
Example
Here's a simple example that updates a file named boot_count every time
main runs. The program can be interrupted at any time without losing track
of how many times it has been booted and without corrupting the filesystem:
#include "lfs.h"
// variables used by the filesystem
lfs_t lfs;
lfs_file_t file;
// configuration of the filesystem is provided by this struct
const struct lfs_config cfg = {
// block device operations
.read = user_provided_block_device_read,
.prog = user_provided_block_device_prog,
.erase = user_provided_block_device_erase,
.sync = user_provided_block_device_sync,
// block device configuration
.read_size = 16,
.prog_size = 16,
.block_size = 4096,
.block_count = 128,
.cache_size = 16,
.lookahead_size = 16,
.block_cycles = 500,
};
// entry point
int main(void) {
// mount the filesystem
int err = lfs_mount(&lfs, &cfg);
// reformat if we can't mount the filesystem
// this should only happen on the first boot
if (err) {
lfs_format(&lfs, &cfg);
lfs_mount(&lfs, &cfg);
}
// read current count
uint32_t boot_count = 0;
lfs_file_open(&lfs, &file, "boot_count", LFS_O_RDWR | LFS_O_CREAT);
lfs_file_read(&lfs, &file, &boot_count, sizeof(boot_count));
// update boot count
boot_count += 1;
lfs_file_rewind(&lfs, &file);
lfs_file_write(&lfs, &file, &boot_count, sizeof(boot_count));
// remember the storage is not updated until the file is closed successfully
lfs_file_close(&lfs, &file);
// release any resources we were using
lfs_unmount(&lfs);
// print the boot count
printf("boot_count: %d\n", boot_count);
}
Usage
Detailed documentation (or at least as much detail as is currently available) can be found in the comments in lfs.h.
littlefs takes in a configuration structure that defines how the filesystem operates. The configuration struct provides the filesystem with the block device operations and dimensions, tweakable parameters that tradeoff memory usage for performance, and optional static buffers if the user wants to avoid dynamic memory.
The state of the littlefs is stored in the lfs_t type which is left up
to the user to allocate, allowing multiple filesystems to be in use
simultaneously. With the lfs_t and configuration struct, a user can
format a block device or mount the filesystem.
Once mounted, the littlefs provides a full set of POSIX-like file and directory functions, with the deviation that the allocation of filesystem structures must be provided by the user.
All POSIX operations, such as remove and rename, are atomic, even in event of power-loss. Additionally, file updates are not actually committed to the filesystem until sync or close is called on the file.
Other notes
Littlefs is written in C, and specifically should compile with any compiler
that conforms to the C99 standard.
All littlefs calls have the potential to return a negative error code. The
errors can be either one of those found in the enum lfs_error in
lfs.h, or an error returned by the user's block device operations.
In the configuration struct, the prog and erase function provided by the
user may return a LFS_ERR_CORRUPT error if the implementation already can
detect corrupt blocks. However, the wear leveling does not depend on the return
code of these functions, instead all data is read back and checked for
integrity.
If your storage caches writes, make sure that the provided sync function
flushes all the data to memory and ensures that the next read fetches the data
from memory, otherwise data integrity can not be guaranteed. If the write
function does not perform caching, and therefore each read or write call
hits the memory, the sync function can simply return 0.
Design
At a high level, littlefs is a block based filesystem that uses small logs to store metadata and larger copy-on-write (COW) structures to store file data.
In littlefs, these ingredients form a sort of two-layered cake, with the small logs (called metadata pairs) providing fast updates to metadata anywhere on storage, while the COW structures store file data compactly and without any wear amplification cost.
Both of these data structures are built out of blocks, which are fed by a common block allocator. By limiting the number of erases allowed on a block per allocation, the allocator provides dynamic wear leveling over the entire filesystem.
root
.--------.--------.
| A'| B'| |
| | |-> |
| | | |
'--------'--------'
.----' '--------------.
A v B v
.--------.--------. .--------.--------.
| C'| D'| | | E'|new| |
| | |-> | | | E'|-> |
| | | | | | | |
'--------'--------' '--------'--------'
.-' '--. | '------------------.
v v .-' v
.--------. .--------. v .--------.
| C | | D | .--------. write | new E |
| | | | | E | ==> | |
| | | | | | | |
'--------' '--------' | | '--------'
'--------' .-' |
.-' '-. .-------------|------'
v v v v
.--------. .--------. .--------.
| F | | G | | new F |
| | | | | |
| | | | | |
'--------' '--------' '--------'
More details on how littlefs works can be found in DESIGN.md and SPEC.md.
-
DESIGN.md - A fully detailed dive into how littlefs works. I would suggest reading it as the tradeoffs at work are quite interesting.
-
SPEC.md - The on-disk specification of littlefs with all the nitty-gritty details. May be useful for tooling development.
Testing
The littlefs comes with a test suite designed to run on a PC using the
emulated block device found in the bd directory.
The tests assume a Linux environment and can be started with make:
make test
License
The littlefs is provided under the BSD-3-Clause license. See LICENSE.md for more information. Contributions to this project are accepted under the same license.
Individual files contain the following tag instead of the full license text.
SPDX-License-Identifier: BSD-3-Clause
This enables machine processing of license information based on the SPDX License Identifiers that are here available: http://spdx.org/licenses/
Related projects
-
littlefs-fuse - A FUSE wrapper for littlefs. The project allows you to mount littlefs directly on a Linux machine. Can be useful for debugging littlefs if you have an SD card handy.
-
littlefs-js - A javascript wrapper for littlefs. I'm not sure why you would want this, but it is handy for demos. You can see it in action here.
-
littlefs-python - A Python wrapper for littlefs. The project allows you to create images of the filesystem on your PC. Check if littlefs will fit your needs, create images for a later download to the target memory or inspect the content of a binary image of the target memory.
-
mklfs - A command line tool built by the Lua RTOS guys for making littlefs images from a host PC. Supports Windows, Mac OS, and Linux.
-
Mbed OS - The easiest way to get started with littlefs is to jump into Mbed which already has block device drivers for most forms of embedded storage. littlefs is available in Mbed OS as the LittleFileSystem class.
-
SPIFFS - Another excellent embedded filesystem for NOR flash. As a more traditional logging filesystem with full static wear-leveling, SPIFFS will likely outperform littlefs on small memories such as the internal flash on microcontrollers.
-
Dhara - An interesting NAND flash translation layer designed for small MCUs. It offers static wear-leveling and power-resilience with only a fixed O(|address|) pointer structure stored on each block and in RAM.